Albany High’s huge challenge

From today’s editorials: Albany High School’s persistently low performance is a crisis for the whole city. It will take a city to fix it.

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The idea of Albany — or any city — without a public high school seems unthinkable. This is 21st century America, not the Old West or the Third World.

Yet by New York state’s standards, Albany High has failed for far too long, so long that replacing it with a charter school is one of the options on the table.

The school’s designation as a persistently lowest achieving school puts the city at a major crossroads. And by the city, we don’t mean just the school board and district administration, but every person and institution in Albany. This is nothing short of a community crisis.

And it is a challenge.

It is a challenge to the school board to lead the district in choosing, from among the few options it has, the best course for Albany. That will mean engaging the administration, teachers and other staff, parents, students and the many other voices in the community, in a discussion that ensures that everyone is on a common course in the end.

It is a challenge to the district’s staff and unions to realize that this could be Albany High’s last chance as a public school, and to consider their natural self-interests in that light. It’s their challenge, too, to be open to change — to tougher evaluations aimed at separating successful educators from those who need more training, a new assignment, or, yes, a new career.

It is a challenge to parents to engage in this discussion, and acknowledge that Albany’s High’s problems aren’t limited to what happens at school — that many youngsters come from homes where the importance of learning is not taught or is lost in a host of social, emotional, financial or other issues.

It is a challenge for other officials — the mayor, Common Council and the city’s county and state representatives — to realize that they have a stake and a role here, too, in the assistance they can provide, including helping to bring the community to the table.

And it is a challenge for the city’s students to recognize that school is not a burden life places on them, but an opportunity that will help them realize their goals and dreams.

There are, fortunately, other less wrenching options besides turning secondary education in the state’s capital city over to a third party that is not as accountable as a traditional public school system.

But they still require major change — in how teachers teach, how they are evaluated and compensated, how much time they and students spend in the classroom, how the school is run, how much it is engaged in students’ lives and how the community supports learning and serves its youth.

Interim Superintendent Raymond Colucciello is right — this is a crisis. And Principal David McCalla is right, too — this is a giant opportunity. To save not just a school, but the future of Albany’s children.